Shaping the NASA workforce for 2020
As a participant in the April 2008 Strategic Management Council (SMC) meeting that first explicitly discussed the issue of “generations” and NASA, I wanted to add some new material some recent discussion in this space and elsewhere about our workforce. I thought it would be particularly timely, considering Nick Skytland’s recent posting of an internal NASA email about recent NASA Strategic Management Council decision to target-hire younger workers, and, the recent posts on NASAWatch about the state of the Federal workforce. Many of the comments that followed on that website requested some data – data about NASA and the contractor workforce. To that end there are two attachments to read in support of this posting.
First is a paper written by me and my NASA HQ colleague Garth Henning. It was first drafted in 2006 and was updated in 2008 in advance of the aforementioned April ‘08 SMC. That paper, titled “The State of the Next Generation of Explorers,” can be found here at OpenNASA. In the rest of this post I refer to this paper as “the white paper” for simplicity. The white paper gives some details about NASA’s demographic history; suggests that paying attention to the combined issues of age and generational differences is worth some detailed attention; discusses what NASA “does” and how that has changed over time; discusses NASA’s relationship with industry now and over time; raises the question of future NASA success; and then suggests different paths forward for NASA as ways to address this demographic issue.
Second is a small set of charts used as “read-ahead” material to that April 2008 SMC. This presentation is titled “NextGen Workforce Data and Questions.” The read-ahead charts presented several questions to foster a discussion at the SMC. These read ahead charts are available here on OpenNASA, as is the final package we briefed to the SMC, which has been up here for some time (April 2008 SMC presentation). I invite you to take some time skimming them before reading the rest of this post.
The white paper points out, and it was discussed at length at our April SMC, that many of the Baby Boomer generation at NASA will be well into or past retirement eligibility by the time we hit 2020; that is, by the time we are supposed to be getting to the Moon, preparing for human missions to Mars, perhaps doing a robotic sample return to Mars, etc. Given that, a reasonable question to ask is – will the people we expect to be leading and managing the agency at that time be ready to do so? Garth and I didn’t know the answer to that question, so we tried to see if there was any data out there that might give us some hints.
In our paper we suggest that given NASA’s demographics and its recent hiring freeze, it now takes a civil servant longer than it ever has to get real management experience. This makes NASA very dependent on industry to develop future talent – management talent, system engineering talent, leadership talent in general, technical talent in general and so on. What we also learned however, and what we show in the white paper, is that the age demographics of the aerospace industry are the same as NASA’s. So – it’s not just NASA that is facing a workforce crisis. It’s all of aerospace – industry and government alike. From the point of view of NASA, this introduces a lot of uncertainty about future mission success.
Another reasonable question to ask therefore, if you are in the shoes of NASA senior leadership, is – is it okay to be dependent on industry if industry share’s NASA’s age problem? If not, what steps can be taken now to make sure that NASA has increased confidence in the preparedness of its future leaders? Stated differently, what are the appropriate steps to take now to assure mission success later?The question of relating future success to current NASA actions gets to the heart of our white paper and the heart of so much of what is discussed here at OpenNASA – what is NASA, and how does it accomplish what the nation expects of it? How does NASA handle its business? In our white paper we looked at what we call the “make/buy” question: how much does NASA do in-house (make), and how much does NASA contract-out (buy), and what impact does that decision have on the make-up of NASA’s workforce in terms of its age, skill mix, experience, and preparedness? Should NASA depend on industry to do the day-to-day work to train, develop, and prepare future leaders, or should NASA assume the lion’s share of that burden itself?
On this last question, we know the answer used to be “yes, NASA used to assume that burden itself.” We’ve all heard stories about the labs or fabrication facilities or flight experiments that our older colleagues took advantage of when they were in their 20’s; how past NASA engineers “cut their teeth” on the shop floors of GRC or JSC. That is not the NASA of today, and it is not the NASA of today by design. Garth and I are of the opinion that the NASA of tomorrow should be the NASA of those older days. It is time to redirect NASA’s mission back to a place where giving smart, young, inexperienced engineers room to roam, to fly stuff, to fail, and to learn, is as important as having well managed programs that fly complex missions to other planets which cannot afford to fail. I’m saying it’s time to redefine what it means for NASA to do its job. And that brings the focus squarely on the make/buy issue, because it has a significant impact on civil servant levels. As we write in the paper, “It seems small, but in-sourcing 1% of NASA’s work will have a dramatic impact on the requirement for civil servants. The corresponding increase in the size of the civil service workforce would range from 4% to 8%. If NASA chooses to “make” more, there will be more hands-on, non-managerial opportunities and more need to hire young civil servants.” To make that happen is complicated – and can lead to lengthy discussions on several topics. The chatter on the internet here and at other places seems to be focusing on a couple of specific questions, so I will address them here. I hope that anyone who reads this will comment on any or all of these points (or whatever I’ve written above).
1. Is this age discrimination?
I do not think so, no. I accept that by focusing on the NASA of 10-15 years from now we are in some ways forcing a focus on people who are relatively young and we are therefore, at least in some way, prioritizing that age cohort. But that’s not age discrimination, it’s just good planning.
2. Isn’t it too risky to have a focus on young people?
Well, I don’t know. But frankly, I don’t think so, not if your concern is experience and the often implicit assumption that people who are older have more of it. In this space and on other blogs the comment has been made that NASA should not hire inexperience college grads instead of experienced 40-(or so)-year-olds to manage programs. I think that’s a fair criticism. Hire people with experience for jobs that require experience. However – the question of experience is one worth thinking about in more detail, and perhaps more critically. Chart 8 of the read-ahead package shows that the average age of a new hire at NASA (a FTP hire) is now almost 40. A critical question to ask is how much of what NASA does right now requires people who are 40 (and therefore have all that experience) versus people who are 35 or 30 (and therefore have less)? Consider that question while looking at the last chart (chart 13) of the read-ahead package. Fifteen years ago NASA was either hiring or promoting its youngest supervisors in noticeable numbers at or around the age of 30. Now NASA is hiring people into those same kinds of positions at about the age of 40. Why is it that 30-year-olds were good for supervisor spots in 1994 but apparently not so in 2008, particularly considering that NASA was doing basically the same set of tasks in 1994 as it is now? Is NASA so different now as compared to then? It’s worth thinking about, even if the answer is yes. And, we are saying that given the leverage you get from in-sourcing 1% of your funds you can accomplish this task without much (if any) new money, without much (if any) impact to current missions, and without forcing a “younger vs. older” false choice.
3. Isn’t there a national problem of too few people with the right education for this work?
Well, again, I don’t know. The demographic information presented in the read ahead charts (chart 9) suggests that getting young people who can do complicated math or who know how to build things into your industry might not be all that difficult, if you’re in an industry other than aerospace. The people are out there.
But if they are out there, how do you get them to NASA? How do you attract them? Salaries and project content for this new in-sourced work is important. Where does the money come from, exactly – that’s important. But anyone familiar with how NASA gets its money out the door knows that there are ample ways to find savings that can equal 1% of our procurement dollars without significant impact to existing work. It might not be easy to do – reform is not easy, but it is the challenge we face.
4. Is this the correct government policy?
Obviously I think so or I wouldn’t have suggested it. Perhaps you think NASA should work more closely with academic institutions to accomplish this task. Perhaps you think the current relationship with industry is the right one, and that more NASA money flowing to industry will mean more young engineers getting more hands-on experience. Perhaps it’s something else. Perhaps you think NASA should go away so that something new can take its place?
Well – I think that’s a good start for my first post. I look forward to comments!
12 Responses to “Shaping the NASA workforce for 2020”
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Raji on May 1st, 2009
Does anybody know if Asians are over represented in the NASA workforce? Reason I ask is that they are not included in the quest for minority recruitment at NASA.
Overdhill on May 1st, 2009
“1. Is this age discrimination?
…But that’s not age discrimination, it’s just good planning.”
By your argument, can’t any industry use this rationalization?
csalkows on May 1st, 2009
Richard, In browsing all of your articles, I’m not quite sure if I can detect why, or if, there is justification for civil servants anywhere other than HQ (much less increasing them or getting younger ones).
Here at JSC we might be hit one week with “take the badges off – we’re all the same here”. Then the next week it’s we can’t turn X over to the contractor because “they don’t have experience” or “they don’t care about safety” Well which is it? After 22 years of civil service, I’m convinced NASA should hire fewer civil servants. The few that do get hired should have much more experience. Why?
Let’s dissolve that whole “integrity towards safety” BS right away. Brewster Shaw? Eileen Collins? Ken Reightler? Gene Cernan? Would you stand before one of these icons, all in top positions with contractors, and tell them they don’t care about crew safety? Can we agree their performance integrity is without question? If you haven’t had the honor to meet any of them, you are probably a very young inexperienced civil servant. I have yet to meet the contractor who is not as dedicated (if not twice as much) to performing their job as any civil servant.
The examples above (I could have provided a very long list) mostly left NASA in the middle of their career toward salaries far, far, beyond what they could hope for as a civil servant. Greedy? Is anyone greedy who wants a promotion? Then I imagine that, in addtion, they believed they had contributed what they could as civil servant and advance the space program better from wherethey are today.
You may try to argue “Ah, but that’s the point. They obtained all of that wonderful experience as a civil servant.” Hmm. Let’s go back to Brewster (Boeing VP, Space Exploration). I challenge you to ask him: if he needs a structural analyst or materials scientist, does he first try to lure one from NASA? (No.) Would Ken Reightler (Lockheed VP, Program Integration) tell a young engineer that he probably won’t obtain beneficial space development experience as a Lockheed designer of the ORION vehicle? (No.)
In fact, who do we expect will be getting the most hands-on spacecraft design experience over the next ten years, the young contractor or the young civil servant? When we’re ready to hire someone to oversee that work and vet issues, do we want the new hire, or the engineer that got the most hands on experience—the contractor?
Let’s review:
1) There’s no reason to believe contractor integrity or safety posture is lower than the civil servants.
2) There’s no reason to believe that mid-career civil servant engineers have obtained such high spaceflight skill levels that they are in high demand by aerospace contractors.
3) There’s no reason to believe that a young engineer is likely to obtain better space development experience by starting out as a civil servant (probably the opposite).
Need I bring up more negative arguments? That the firstline CS manager in charge of groundskeeping earns more than most astronauts and scientists? That the head of the CS IT department earns as much as the International Space Station Program Manager? That every CS office has a significant proportion of RIP (retired in place) 13s, 14, and 15s?
Help me understand why we need more, and younger, civil servants again?
Charles
wannabe on May 2nd, 2009
As someone who has been trying for 10 years to go from a contractor badge to a civil servant badge, why don’t you focus on proper methods for hiring and making it a fair process before you begin bringing in a bunch of “fresh-outs”. At least at JSC, it has been my experience that to become a “gold badge” you need to know someone and then customize your resume to “match” the open job req. But even before that, you need to find out if there’s a job available. The only way to know that is to pander to the administrative staff to inquire if their department is hiring. It definitely is not an open and honest system and needs an overhaul.
Is this current process really the best way to hire on folks – regardless of them being Gen Y or from any other Gen?
If you want to really bring on the best and the brightest, why don’t you announce all job reqs in plain language on NASA.gov? Get rid of your word recognition software and put some real people behind the decision making process. Get rid of your system of rating the word-smithed resume and only interviewing the top 3 candidates.
It is time for a change. Change your hiring practices and change your process.
rmcclelland on May 2nd, 2009
The problem with hiring many fresh outs as civil servants is that once hired, they are hired for life. If they start performing poorly in their mid-late twenties its too late, NASA can never get rid of them. It’s probably good to also mix in engineers in their late twenties and early thirties that have already proven themselves as contractors or in other industries.
As a engineering services contractor at NASA, the problem is, I can only take on a certain level of responsibility before the job must belong to a civil servant or be shared with a civil servant. An engineering services contractor sitting on center, regardless of their experience and skill, is fundamentally limited in technical leadership.
ld on May 5th, 2009
Interesting discussion. From my 12 year experience as a contractor, with NO degree, I’d say I was motivated by the type of work, certainly not the money. I came from a college town, where the Ph.D.’s flipped burgers; working here seemed natural, because as a single mom back at the University, I made more money than a lot of people with degrees – everyone had an education – but not everyone applies their knowledge. My work experience was gained out of my natural curiosity and motivation to make a difference. Isn’t that why anyone comes to work here? If it’s only about money, you’ll never get the right mix. Don’t worry about age – NASA seems to value both experience and “fresh eyes” – balance is the key.
funnybutonpoint on May 5th, 2009
The average ages of astronauts has been going up for years.
Check out the crew menus posted for the upcoming Shuttle mission to the Hubble!
http://is.gd/pqPF
Compare the menu links for crew members.
The Pilot (Gregory C. Johnson) is a 55 year old grandfather, with a hip replacement, going into Space for the first time. Check out the last item for breakfast every day…….”Metamucil Wafers”
mgibson700 on May 6th, 2009
I find the conversation stimulating. I want to add by saying everyone is needed–the government Civil Servant, the contractor, the researchers, the academecians, the skilled trades workforce and where they come from–inside or outside of government has been a debilitating issue for longer than some of you have lived.
Why does it matter whether you are inside or outside of the government–because of the policies. Just as a goverment person could not come and sit in a contractor’s area and learn all of the contractor’s business, neither is it allowed for the contractor to sit in the government employee’s area and learn all about his/her business. Why is that? Is the hording of information more important than the sharing and acquiring the intended goals? It is because of the money….money for the company….don’t get side tracked that it is about the money for the individual. The big aerospace companies hire the NASA retirees to help them get the next big contracts. Sometimes we get so lost in who can decide what, when, and where we lose sight of it is all about the money. Government and industry cut the same corners around safety of equipment and life because of what…..bad publicity which then affects the stock market or GAO decisions.
NASA needs young people, contractors need young people…we need development plans that let young people become leaders early in their careers and move up to the top leadership positions when they are ready. Both government and contractor agencies need to put into place programs that expose the young scientist and engineers to the role of leadership, team management, budgetary controls, contract policies, polictical impacts and decision making. An engineer can know the technical requirements, the leader can know the interpersonal interaction and management requirements but it takes both to make a successful event.
I believe we should not taut that one is better than the other because divided we fall….haven’t you heard that before? Haven’t you witnessed that yet? Create “partnerships” with each other an quit tauting the CS is better than the contractor of the contractor is better than the CS. They are both great and bad! I have been both and know this too be a fact.
csalkows on May 7th, 2009
Yes MGibson, there’s bad on both sides. But the contractor can get a wake-up call by being laid off/fired.
BD on June 5th, 2009
Some of the workforce issues cropped up during ISDC: http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2.....lieve.html
ajs on June 6th, 2009
It seems to me that the most important issue is not the specific demographic differences you have studied, but the fact that the aerospace field will be losing a lot of institutional knowledge with the wave of coming retirees in aerospace. I don’t see how they can pass on their knowledge without hiring new employees to work on projects with them *before* they retire. But that would require drastically increased funding for a few years – how would we get Congress to approve that, to allow overlap?
Also, it seems to me that we can’t become overly focused on younger workers, or we will merely create another wave of workers of similar age, and the agency will face the same problem again when they all begin to retire.
I would also be interested in seeing the demographics on smaller projects. I expect that smaller projects would have more balanced demographics than NASA as a whole. If that is true, then if 1% of NASA’s budget is to be used to address workforce issues, it would be essential that the funding is used for small exciting projects, regardless of whether the work is done by NASA or contractors. Perhaps if that was the case, NASA wouldn’t need to set arbitrary quotas (like 50% new hires are out of school) – the demographic issues would take care of themselves.
Phoosh11 on June 13th, 2009
Hello my name is Kevin. I am 27 years old, I have a very beutifull wife named Sarah and a preciouse baby girl named Sydney. I am a full time firefighter, Youth Pastor, Dad, and Husband.
My wife and I work with an average of about 80 teenagers every friday night in a street outreach program. We attract some of the roughest kids in our neighborhood. This past month I have been asking kids about space, and would they ever want to be an astronaut. Time and Time again I get a puzzled am I smoking crack look on their faces. I ask myself why? These kids are from single parent, low income homes. They live in a world where their parents work two jobs, speak english as a second language, and don’t even hold a high school diploma.
I think the reason Nasa feels out of their reach is because Nasa is out of their reach. They don’t know anybody from their community that has actually made it. Wouldn’t it be wonderfull if Jose the cop from down the block made the cut. Or their uncle Kevin the construction worker took an entry level exam to be a astronaut and passed it with flying colors. If you wan’t to bring up the next generation of explorers I believe you have to inspire the world around them. And for most of them the world around them doesn’t reach out to space camps, an audience with special speaker, and a full ride to college. For most of them the world around them is a couple of blocks long. Its filled with gangs, drugs, and dreams that are dreamt small. I propose a entry level pilot program. One that takes a chance on everday Americans. No degree needed. Put them through every test a regualar astronaut would go through and see who comes out shining. What would stir up the next generation of space exploration more than a shot to actually do it.
Who knows maybe Jose the cop or Kevin the construction worker have more influence on the next generation than we think.